Rusty_OToole Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 https://www.thedrive.com/news/29197/this-87-year-old-man-has-owned-and-driven-the-same-ford-model-t-pickup-truck-for-70-years 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
60FlatTop Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 I have seen that story before. Can you imagine someone working for 500 hours to buy a 20+ year old car. Looks like a tall tale to me. Maybe 10 cents per hour at the garage, but farming 40 acres of wheat or selling a couple of beef cattle on the side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunsmoke Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 "Looks like a tall tale to me". C'mon 60FT, there always seems to be one sceptic in the crowd! I've met Randal Pittman, and know of him and his history with this great old truck. In fact he spoke at one of our old car club meetings a while back. Very humble unassuming guy, a true testament to those who love old trucks/cars. As far as wages, some people soon forget how times have changed. In the early 60's during University days, I worked as a summer student at the local steel plant in their casual labour pool, used to spell off full time workers during vacations. We got paid $0.60 per hour (cleared about $19 per week) and that was one of the best paying jobs around, most labor jobs at that time only paid $0.40 an hour, and field workers got less. So Mr. Pittman as a teenager just after WWII was likely right on the money when he says $0.10 per hour. Ask your grandfather! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty_OToole Posted April 13, 2020 Author Share Posted April 13, 2020 As a teenager in the late 60s I worked several summer jobs for 75 cents or 90 cents an hour. I also bought used cars for $35. Don't know if the Model T story is true but would think, for $47.50 in 1949 you would get quite a nice T. It was just a 25 year old used car at the time, car collecting hardly existed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFitz Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 My first "real" job, as soon as I could get working papers at age 15, was working in a boat yard in 1966 and making $1.25 an hour, which was minimum wage then. Not as long a time, but a Great Aunt had a Model A sedan that she bought new and she drove it up until the late 1960's that I know of. My cousin has it now. When I was little I road in it to Church on Sundays whenever I'd stay with my Grand Parents who lived two blocks away from Aunt Lil and didn't have a car of their own. One Sunday I tore the seat of my only suit pants on a broken rear seat spring that had worked it's way through the horse hair. Thought I'd been bit by some critter hiding in the seat. Paul 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cahartley Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 I got my first real job working evenings at a local pallet plant in my small village of 500'ish in 1968. Some of us from the high school worked an evening shift for which we were paid $1.60 an hour whereas the day crew got $1.55.....oh my the whining. Back then I could put $2 worth of gas in my $200 '59 Chevy and drive at least a week. Cigarettes were 20¢ a pack I think. As long as we could drive and smoke we were happy.......we did and we were....... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunsmoke Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 (edited) Everything's relative. To keep to the car theme, I bought a '59 "Corvair powered" Karmann Ghia coupe in the summer of 1966 for $100 from a guy I was working with at an industrial site, he was leaving town. I was working as an instrument man, surveying, laying out bases for turbine gear etc and making the then princely sum of $300 a month (about $1.50 per hour). The resident engineer walked the large site daily and someone commented that "you know, he gets paid $1000 a month", imagine! I remember thinking what a guy could do with that kind of dough. Oh, I kept that KG thru university in 1970, what a great little car, pulled the corvair engine for a rebuild, bought a new 1970 TR6, and the KG eventually sold. Wish I still had both of them. Edited April 13, 2020 by Gunsmoke (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billy Kingsley Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 Considering this is a forum dedicated to people to buy 25 year old cars or want to, that doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility to me. Not all of us can afford nice, new things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Beat Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 Totally possible. Even as recently as the early 1990s, I could buy a '69 Pontiac for $100 on a minimum wage job ($4.25 / hr at the time). Not sure I would have wanted to drive that thing for the next 70 years, though. I have a far bigger problem with the author describing a Model T as "analog". Seriously... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Harwood Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 Why the hell is he hand-cranking a 1927 Ford, especially at 87 years of age? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFranklin Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 5 minutes ago, Matt Harwood said: Why the hell is he hand-cranking a 1927 Ford, especially at 87 years of age? He is still frugal and remembers how hard he came by his money. New batteries cost money Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe in Canada Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 (edited) 43 minutes ago, Matt Harwood said: Why the hell is he hand-cranking a 1927 Ford, especially at 87 years of age? And look where he has his thumb so I suspect it is a staged picture . After all a 1927 would have electric start from the factory. Edited April 14, 2020 by Joe in Canada (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
60FlatTop Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 C'mon, don't pick out things like a skeptic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunsmoke Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 Randal Pittman is still vey much alive. I hope he does not get to read these very uncharitable sarcastic comments. C'mon guys, grow up! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
60FlatTop Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 15 hours ago, JFranklin said: He is still frugal and remembers how hard he came by his money. New batteries cost money My wife has a frugal friend who goes out to dinner with us once in a while. She would use a crank start car if she had one. The battery box would be full of cracker packages and condiments from the restaurant. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
28 Chrysler Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 There is a fellow in Vegas that can hardly walk and in his mid 80s that hand cranks his 27 T. $1 a day was almost a standard for a 12 hour work day in my Grandfather's time for men's work, my father made 60¢ per hour driving truck for a local meat packer . In the 1960s minimum wage of $1.25 for men and $1.05 for the ladies posted in the break room, under 18 there was no minimum wage . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adalah Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, 60FlatTop said: C'mon, don't pick out things like a skeptic. agree Edited April 14, 2020 by adalah (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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